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Case StudyMcLane Global

The To-Increase solutions enabled McLane to connect their systems and simplify communications and processes. These also effectively support process automation and applications that involve information transfers.

Business Integration Solutions from To-Increase helped global food distributor, McLane simplify work, effectively serve enterprise customers, and speed up processes.

The McLane Global reputation has been built on more than a century of operations in the food industry. The company’s distribution services have long served leading brands to help them bring their products to retailers and consumers. Today, McLane Global provides third-party logistics services from a recently expanded facility near Houston. It offers a complete range of worldwide food export services; and markets food products under its well-known Lady Liberty brand. Another division, the Hunger Relief Distribution Network, helps food banks and nonprofits purchase affordable and good-quality food products for distribution to needful consumers, most of them in the Houston metropolitan area.

Key Benefits

  • Simplifies information management and communications
  • Enables the organization to produce optimal outcomes from ERP and logistics systems
  • Allows a small team to run a global food distribution business and logistics services with ease
  • Streamlines logistics management to enable consolidation in a single operation instead of four
  • Supports a wide range of diverse usages, such as e-commerce
McLane Global
  • Company: McLane Global
  • Website: www.mclaneglobal.com
  • Country or Region: US
  • Industry: Food Distribution
Software and Services
  • To-Increase Connectivity Studio
  • To-Increase EDI Studio
  • Microsoft Dynamics
Customer Profile
McLane Global, headquartered in Houston, Texas, provides logistics services to the food industry, exports its own brands of food products, and sources low-cost, high quality goods to regional nonprofits.
Business Situation
When third-party logistics became McLane Global’s fastest-growing business, the company decided to modernize and enhance its technology foundation.re
Solution
McLane Global updated to the most recent version of Microsoft Dynamics and facilitated important integrations as well as process automations and communications with Connectivity Studio and EDI Studio from To-Increase.

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“To-Increase integration technology supports us in accomplishing a lot with very few people. We can automate to a degree that we can spend most of our time managing the business workflows, not the fine details that comprise them.”

Hank Morton, Director of Operations,McLane Global

New ERP system requires integration 
The fastest-growing business at McLane Global is third-party logistics. To support this service and its customers more effectively, McLane Global upgraded its ERP system to the latest version of Microsoft Dynamics—an implementation performed by Hitachi—and also deployed HighJump logistics software. Hank Morton, Director of Operations at McLane Global, explains, “When we looked for a way to connect Microsoft Dynamics and our HighJump logistics system so they could communicate, To-Increase Connectivity Studio came highly recommended both by Hitachi as well as Columbus.” McLane Global carefully evaluated the possible options before making a software purchase. “We shopped around for comparable integration solutions and also reviewed what kind of functionality and pricing was available from service companies,” says Morton. “From both the pricing and capabilities perspective, it made sense to get To-Increase Connectivity Studio and EDI Studio and run them within our ERP environment.”


Two days to generate technology benefits
McLane Global implemented Connectivity Studio to integrate its ERP and logistics systems and EDI Studio to facilitate more efficient electronic data interchange (EDI) communications with vendors and customers. The company deployed and configured the two integration solutions with some remote assistance from To-Increase within two days.
Morton describes, “To-Increase did a great job in helping us implement Connectivity Studio and EDI Studio and understand what we could accomplish with them. We worked through the most likely usage scenarios and learned what steps to take in planning and performing integration projects.”
The approach taken by To-Increase brought success in integrating important ERP and logistics and prepared the company for the effective use of EDI. “We achieved our initial intent for integration and EDI communications,” notes Morton. “However, the benefit of Connectivity Studio and EDI Studio goes far beyond these purposes.”

EDI communication with different enterprises
In addition to integrating the HighJump and Microsoft Dynamics systems by means of Connectivity Studio, McLane Global created integrations with the systems of several key customers. The company also makes broader use of EDI communications. “We now want as much as possible for customers and partners to use EDI to interact with us,” says Morton. “With EDI Studio, this is much more efficient. It makes it easier for customers to use our services, and it
enables us to work more productively with the largest vendor and customer companies, where EDI is often mandated as the way you do business.”